Not Everything Is Either-Or...

... or at least the choice or the alternatives aren't always obvious.

Three very different situations I read about in my weekly look at advice columns surfaced the same common thinking error. I've heard this called "binary thinking," but I'm not wild about the term. False dichotomy is another one that doesn't quite sit right with me here, although I like it better.

I'll roll with the above title and state that not every situation has a clean-cut, either-or set of correct alternatives, or at least if there is a clear-cut solution, its application requires enough thought that applying the solution will require significant effort.

Indeed, just after writing the above, I'm inclined to see discovering the issue or application of a clear choice as issue(s) that can muddy any problem.

Two of the three letters I considered are similar in many ways, and pertain to family dynamics being strained by strong differences in ethics or political opinion.

In one of these, Carolyn Hax tackles the question of a woman who, although very different from her in-laws, is looking for a way to continue seeing them, rather than not visiting them at all, as her husband suggested. To that idea, Hax correctly argues that the choice isn't keep seeing them as usual OR not at all:

[D]on't underestimate avoidance as a permanent solution. Boycotting is extreme, sure, but... You can make the visits a wee bit shorter, a tad less frequent, a smidge more structured (a movie, a play, another venue where conversation is similarly discouraged). After a day or two, you can spin off on your own to visit a friend who lives somewhere (remotely) nearby. You can become Super DIL and go grocery shopping (alone), weed the flower beds (alone), do the dishes (alone) ... especially when politics erupt.

In other words, you can control the dosage more, and more good-naturedly, than you think. A fresher you can then focus on where your interests do overlap.

The similarity to the adage, The dose makes the poison, resolves the apparent contradiction of the woman being driven crazy by her in-laws, but still wanting them in her life. The rest of Hax's excellent answer concerns determining what, exactly, bothers the woman and helping her become able to make peace with not resolving that, at least any time soon.

An Ask a Therapist letter concerns a more serious problem that does merit leaving a relative out of certain family gatherings, but not cutting off all contact. Again, for good reasons, the writer wants to maintain contact with a wayward son and the sister he has alienated, but does not want to condone what her son has done:

Granted, this might feel like a hard limit for you to set, especially because your son might never repair the damage, but doing so accomplishes two things. First, it takes a clear protective stand: Those harmed shouldn't miss out on the joy of family gatherings; those who harm shouldn't be present in these settings. Second, it leaves room for you to continue to see your son separately -- though not neutrally.

Here, the time to cut all ties has plainly not come for the mother, who has some hope that it never will come.

The third letter, regarding the difficulties a couple face when one partner has determined a need to become sober, presents a very clear choice that someone is having trouble applying in the context of his marriage and wider social life.

That difficulty disappears when Dr. Nerdlove reminds the writer that, while his spouse can certainly support his efforts, she doesn't have to go sober herself, and that they needn't get rid of everything that came with drinking socially:

[T]hat doesn't mean that your relationship is doomed. It just means that you're going to have to figure out ways to accommodate what can feel like conflicting, even mutually exclusive desires. They don't have to be conflicting, mind you; it will just require some creativity and mutual accommodation to make it all work without threatening your sobriety.

One thing that can help is if you can figure out what, precisely, you miss about drinking, besides the literal alcohol. Many times, part of what people miss when giving up any vice is the routine -- lighting up a cigarette at certain times of the day, mixing drinks for yourself and your wife before settling in to watch a movie, going out to dinner and drinks on a Saturday night. It can be helpful to find ways to keep the ritual in your life, but without the booze component.

Other times, it could be the tangible aspects that you miss, such as how people who give up soda often miss the sensation of carbonation and the mouth feel of the bubbles or the tang of the caffeine on the tongue. Having something that can replace those sensations or those tactile aspects can make it easier to resist when you're flooded with urges to relapse.

There're a few options, if you're of a mind...

The full answer is ingenious in that it doesn't just address the very real relationship concern, but also the difficulties of making a major life change generally. Here, the choice was clear, but hard to apply, and hindered by the incorrect idea that many of the things that went with the vice would be lost forever when getting rid of that vice.

So after all of that, were there clear choices? Yes: (1) She wants to know her in-laws while keeping her sanity; (2) She wants to protect her daughter and possibly help her son; and (3) He wants to save not just his life, but his marriage, from his problem drinking.

-- CAV

Pillow Guy Holds Out for Padding

Depending on which conservative you read, either disaster was averted or an an election was stolen in Minnesota's Republican gubernatorial primary yesterday.

Credit John Hinderaker of PowerLine with enough sense to see that pillow magnate and Trump stooge Mike Lindell was a poor choice for governor:

Lisa Demuth, the Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, has been called as the winner of the Republican primary for governor. Results here. This is notable because Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy, was also in the race, and he was endorsed by Donald Trump. Trump's endorsement was, frankly, idiotic. Lindell hadn't the faintest qualifications to be governor, and if he had gotten the nomination, he would have been crushed by Amy Klobuchar, something like 80% to 20%. Lindell led in some polls, but I never believed that he had a serious chance, in part because I know hundreds of people who voted in the Republican primary, and I don't know anyone who voted for Lindell. [link omitted, bold added]

Qualifications? He's loyal to Trump, just like Bobby Kennedy. Any American racing to the bathroom after a salad will tell you that's good enough.

Sarcasm aside, the polls, as of this morning, show the same 10% drubbing as there was when Lindell -- somewhat predictably -- refused to concede, only with 99% of precincts reporting:

"I'm down by 20,000 votes with 277,00 [sic] votes left to count," Lindell said as votes were being counted on Tuesday night. "Now, would you give up if you got 277,000 left to count? And these are the day-of votes, which haven't been counted yet. These were all mail-in and early votes for Lisa Demuth. So, I mean, why would I say here and go, 'Ok, I can't make up 20,000 [with] 277,000 left to count?' So, that's where we're at."

Moreover, Lindell suggested something nefarious was afoot. [bold added]

Of course it was rigged. He'll keep going when all the votes have been counted, unless he wins.

For those of us on Planet Earth, there is good news and bad news, depending on whether one sees continued Republican Trump Party control of the Senate as a good thing. (I don't.)

As Hinderaker notes, Lisa Demuth won't "drag down the ticket" against her loony left Democrat opponent, which will benefit Michele Tafoya, who won the GOP Senate primary and faces a charisma-challenged far-left opponent in Peggy Flanagan.

This makes the GOP more likely to flip a Senate seat in Minnesota, which would make the unlikely prospect of the Trump Party losing both houses remote, as the Senate was never going to be easy.

The Trump Party, long overdue for a repudiation, thus seems less likely to get one, and so, less likely to move away from Trump and towards being the real alternative to the left that Americans are desperate for.

-- CAV

Trial by Ordeal Makes a Comeback

I hear from the Guardian that Anthony Fauci pled the Fifth 100 times in Senate hearings about his actions during the pandemic. To a certain knee-jerk portion of the body politic, I hear this means that Trump's former advisor is guilty as sin and should be locked up. [Insert whistle here.]

Amesh Adalja: "Blaming Fauci Won't Prepare Us for the Next Pandemic"

Unfortunately for MAGA, that same trial-by-ordeal-like "standard" would have have their hero, Donald Trump, behind bars long ago: He did the same thing over 400 times during a 2022 deposition in New York about his namesake organization's business practices.

But that was a witch hunt! will be their version of But this is different!

Trump is openly, obviously corrupt -- and Fauci plainly isn't omniscient and made mistakes. Two things about each can be true at once: Authorities can (1) have valid reasons for wanting to understand their past actions better, and (2) choose to perform a witch-hunt instead.

In 2022, the Democrats were incompetently trying to bring Trump down before the election for legally weak reasons -- after inadequately pursuing several serious legal matters they should have already had well underway by then.

Now, the Republicans, who -- as Amesh Adalja argues in the embedded video above -- should be interested in looking back at their handling of the Covid pandemic are instead trying to simply scapegoat Fauci.

Regarding Fauci, I once said:

As much as I am personally inclined to dislike Fauci, he is a human being who had a very difficult job to to. He should state his side of the story clearly, and we should hear it before passing judgement on him.

That isn't what happened in the hearings.

Regarding actual post-mortems, the Guardian piece mentions the commentary of Zeynep Tufekci, which I found thoughtful.

I concluded that post as follows:

It is interesting, and not in a happy way, to consider what this pandemic has revealed to us about the state of our culture (as manifest in its intellectual and governing classes), both in terms of what passes for knowledge and in terms of how society should be organized.

That observation applies particularly well today. The Guardian notes:

No surprise, really, that Fauci, now retired from his public post, invoked the fifth amendment more than 100 times during last week's Senate committee hearing.

That's the action that -- though reasonable enough given all the circumstances -- is the supposed impetus for holding him in contempt. Now the committee has referred the matter to the justice department for possible criminal prosecution.

Fauci could see the writing on the wall as this trumped-up hearing began. In his opening statement, he singled out the Kentucky senator Rand Paul, the Republican committee chairperson.

"The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, 'behind bars'," Fauci said. "Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion."

I agree with the Guardian that Fauci does not deserve this, and I agree further with epidemiologist Amesh Adalja (whose podcast is embedded above) that "Blaming Fauci won't prepare us for the next pandemic."

-- CAV

Pay for Overhead?!?! Yes, Please!

An Australian budget airline is coming under fire after offering its customers a new way to make flying less stressful.

That new way?

Paying for overhead storage:

Jetstar says the decision followed feedback from both passengers and airline staff, who identified "having bags weighed at the gate and struggling to find room in overhead lockers as the more stressful parts of the airport experience," according to a statement released by the carrier on Wednesday. [bold added]

I don't fly that much, but for a time I did. Trying to use overhead storage was so annoying for precisely these reasons that I tried to confine myself to a computer bag I could fit under the seat in front of me.

Whenever I did have a second carry-on, I usually had to hunt for somewhere to put it (and then remember to take it with me on deboarding) -- thanks probably to the people who went wild with carry-ons and are now getting the most bent out of shape over the announcement:

The move immediately triggered backlash on X, where flyers accused the airline of dressing up an unpopular fee as a customer-friendly option. "Jetstar rebranding a blatant cash grab as "Priority Carry-on Choice" is a masterclass in gaslighting. Hope it backfires," wrote one user.

Others questioned whether the airline should even be allowed to do it. "Seriously? How is this legal?" wrote another. A third vowed to take their business elsewhere: "Well I know who I won't be flying with," a third said.

A masterclass in gaslighting?

Choice is exactly what "free" overhead storage denied me most of the time. I, for one, would have loved knowing I could put any carry-on close to my seat, where I could remember it and get it quickly at the end of my flight. On top of that, on those flights when one might need access to the bag -- e.g., parents traveling with infants -- access would be quicker and there would be no need to plan for the contingency of juggling things at the last second because some clown wants to avoid checking bags.

I'm rooting for Jetstar, and hope its idea catches on.

-- CAV

Four Random Things

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. From a news story about the "alien chemistry" found within a meteorite, here's what to do if a meteor strikes your home and you want to help scientific progress:

He then immediately preserved and documented the entire scene using disposable gloves and aluminum foil to place the meteorite fragments in glass jars.

The surviving rock weighed two pounds and was a rare, and especially interesting type.

Well done!

2. At In the Pipeline, Derek Lowe notes that researchers looking to use filtration instead of distillation in parts of the oil refining process were able to make use of a problem inherent in choosing a pore size to filter a substance containing molecules with a wide range of sizes:

... [O]ne thing that was noticed quickly was the the initial liquid coming through was still quite dark, but then lightened considerably for the rest of the run.

It turns out that a thin layer of higher-boiling material coats the insides of the pores of the PAN membranes as the first material is sent through, and analysis of the conditioned membranes suggests that this is made of up high-boiling long-chain alkanes, rather than polyaromatic material. The authors could actually wash this off with straight toluene, giving a PAN membrane with the original behavior that was apparently no worse for the treatment. It appears that the original PAN pores of around 15nm are narrowed to 2nm or below by this adsorption layer, and both the size and the chemical characteristics of the "new" pores are responsible for the separations.

So you just need to clog things up a bit, the right way, and you're in good shape. Who knew? ... [bold added]

As one commenter quips, "[G]ood as new is worse."

3. Continuing our theme of improvisation for a moment, I learned recently of a company claiming to make the world's largest zip tie:

To be clear, we're not just talking about length, although at 47 inches long it's certainly substantial. But extremely long zip ties already exist for things like wrapping large bundles of cable. This one is also cartoonishly thick, and features a similarly upscaled locking mechanism that allows it to hold up to 2,000 pounds, according to the company.

The monster ties can be had for $75 apiece, 12 for $800, or 15 for $1,700.

4. Moderna's new mRNA flu vaccine isn't just approved, it soon may be available at pharmacy near you:

Major insurers have previously indicated they will continue to cover vaccines. However, sign-off from a federal vaccine advisory panel can influence coverage in certain states, though some are moving away from requiring the panel's recommendation...

It's difficult to predict how broadly pharmacies would stock the newly approved mRNA flu vaccine in the absence of recommendations from ACIP and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Brigid Groves, a vice president at the American Pharmacists Association. However, pharmacists' authority to order and administer vaccines in many states is no longer directly tied to ACIP recommendations, meaning "authority may be less of a barrier than it would have been in the past," she said.

It's good to know that there is resistance to the hostile takeover of the FDA by the anti-vaxx movement.

One advantage of the new vaccine, mentioned in the story, is that it will be easier and quicker to change it to match the prevalent flu strains in circulation than vaccines using older technology. This is because the latter take six months to manufacture.

Based on a quick, cursory search, I think the new vaccine matches the same strains as the old. Whether this is because the group in charge of selecting the target strain chose well, or there is some other reason, I have no idea.

-- CAV

Conspiracism vs. Creativity

Although Alison Green wasn't writing about conspiracism, a recent post of hers at Ask a Manager indirectly reminded me of that phenomenon, and the seemingly creative ways that conspiracists purport to explain what's "really going on."

Green takes a question about what might motivate instances of apparently mixed messages from management in a couple of instances the writer is aware of, and the immediate short answer is what caused me to think of conspiracism:

You're imagining this as all more cohesive than it is -- that there's a grand plan unifying all their actions, but very often there isn't.

Green tackles each of the scenarios in turn, and culminates in a list of typical reasons situations like the ones she was asked about occur:

• Plans changed, and the earlier conversations planning the change took place above their heads and they weren't even aware it was under discussion.
• Plans changed, and they were in those earlier conversations but didn't think it would go the way it went, or were simply juggling too many other things to game out exactly what it could end up meaning for everyone under them until it actually happened.
• Someone above them mentioned something that put pressure on them (and therefore their team) in a way they weren't anticipating earlier.
• Something happened that you don't know about that is changing how they're approaching something / how much they care about it (for example, they told you last month you didn't need to stress about expense report deadlines and they then discovered your coworker hadn't turned any in for a year and so now they're less laissez-faire about it).
• They're being pulled in multiple directions and so haven't sat down and thought things through as deliberately as you're imagining; they are managing through chaos.
• They messed up. Sometimes this may simply be because they're human, and other times they might not be a great (organized/thoughtful/attentive) manager.

Hanlon's Razor states that one should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Not everything on the above list qualifies as stupidity, but many can look a lot like stupidity. All are things known to occur frequently enough that it makes sense to consider them as possible explanations before jumping to the conclusion that a puzzling event is motivated by some kind of plan.

Needless to say, similar kinds of things to the above non-exhaustive list can occur in other situations involving any kind of organization.

In light of the above, conspiracist "explanations" look far less creative than a truly deliberate consideration of the possible causes of a puzzling event.

-- CAV

Trump to Bring Back the Gas Line?

At RealClear Markets, Peter Grossman of the National Center for Energy Analytics considers President Trump's recent tirades against "unrealistic" gasoline prices and what an authoritarian ignoramus like him might do about them.

Along the way, a name increasingly familiar lately for other bad reasons comes up: Richard Nixon, whose brilliant solution to inflation, price controls, sounds like it would be right up Trump's alley.

I am old enough to remember gas lines and rationing fuel by allowing sales on certain days to even or odd tag numbers, but I didn't get the full picture of the carnage that wreaked: I was, after all, not even 10 back then.

Grossman fills us all in on what we can expect if Trump pulls such a stunt:

Refiners and retailers had to petition for price increases, and couldn't automatically pass on rising costs. Decisions were handed down at the start of the following month. As a result, many gas stations simply closed during the final week of each month while waiting for approval to raise prices. Allotments were also made monthly, and some stations had to close toward the end of the month having run through their supplies before they could replenish their stock. This only lengthened gas lines.

Because stations could not just pass along costs, government controls squeezed station profit margins. Consequently, hundreds of stations closed for good in 1973-4. [bold added]

Any economist who knows what he is talking about in the least will warn against price controls, but in the Trump era, will they be heard at all?

They're not part of Trump's inner circle, and he made it clear long ago that they aren't wanted in his party.

In a time when the brain-dead and those who pander to them mock "experts" and "elites" -- while praising blind faith in a single, not-too-bright individual -- it will be the voices who could easily spare us a lot of pain who are least likely to be heard.

Trump supporters would do well to consider how similar the idea that Trump will do it right sounds to the socialists who are even now saying This time, it will work!

And vice versa.

I won't be holding my breath.

-- CAV